Fear and Kindness on the Road to Calgary

I can’t remember what month it was, only that snow had begun to fall as we drove from Lethbridge to Calgary. The road wasn’t a highway, just a patchwork of farm grids: a few miles straight, a turn left, a curve right, and again. It was slow going, maybe 90 minutes through sleet and wind before you hit the main highway.

At one bend, we saw a man and a woman standing by the roadside. A First Nations couple. Maybe they were from the nearby Blood Reserve (Kainai Nation), where some of my students lived or came from. I don’t even recall if they had their thumbs out, but they looked desperate.

We pulled over. Natasha stepped out into the sleet to fold down the passenger seat of our two-door ’83 Cutlass. It was cold enough to give someone frostbite or worse

We asked where they were headed. It was somewhere along our route. They climbed into the back seat and sat quietly, never speaking to each other the whole time. Both of their jackets appeared too thin for the weather. The woman stared out the window, her face turned away from us.

Natasha and I spoke in French with each other, speculating about their situation. Maybe they had a gun or a knife. Perhaps they were high. I worried we were being rude, talking about them in a language they might not understand.

When we reached their stop, they thanked us and stepped into the snow. We watched them go, hoping they’d make it through the night. Some people might’ve driven on, afraid. But we couldn’t leave them there to freeze. Whatever their story, helping them felt like the only right thing to do.

Photo Credit:

Title: A Curve Ahead

Photographer: Paul Jerry